The development of renewable energies is essential for Lanzarote, as a Biosphere Reserve, to abandon fossil fuels, which produce greenhouse gases and aggravate climate change, but the amount of energy generated from renewable sources is not regular, but depends on the intensity of the sun, waves, or wind at a given moment.
Hence, it is essential to have storage capacity, either through infrastructure on land or through interconnections with other territories, such as the one that already exists with Fuerteventura, which can take advantage of the surplus energy that is generated. This is particularly true in the case of offshore wind power, since the mills at sea generally generate three times more energy than, for example, the mills on land. There are several technologies to store renewable energy such as thermosolar with molten salts, lithium-ion batteries or pumping. This last option is the one that will be put into practice in Gran Canaria thanks to the Salto de Chira hydroelectric plant.
"The energy transition process cannot continue without a large-scale storage system at the user level," declared the Canarian Minister for Energy Transition, José Antonio Valbuena, in a debate forum organized by the College of Civil Engineers, Channels and Ports of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The counselor added that a regulatory change is vitally important to accelerate the processing and execution of this type of infrastructure. According to the counselor, having an autonomous regulatory framework that reflects the situation of the island territories with closed energy systems would speed up everything and the decarbonization objectives could be achieved more quickly. In addition, he cited the Azores as an example, which is "light years ahead in storage" thanks to its own legislation.
Electricity grid: "The best storage technology is interconnection"
The director of Infrastructure in the Canary Islands of Red Eléctrica-REINCAN, Daniel Pérez Varela, present in the debate, pointed out that the Canary Islands is a territory where "all technologies have to participate", referring to the different energy storage alternatives available. "The Canary Islands is a tremendously isolated system and the best storage technology is interconnection in addition to the need for large storage facilities."
Miguel Serrano, head of Iberdrola Renovables in the Canary Islands, took advantage of his intervention to ensure that "the most efficient and most developed storage system is pumping." An idea that was endorsed by Yonay Concepción, Technical Director of the Salto de Chira and vice-dean of the Demarcation of Las Palmas of the College, assuring that "hydroelectric use is a leap into the future." Concepción also wanted to highlight the large amounts of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by the power plants that currently operate in Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
With respect to the favorite location in Tenerife to build a pumped storage hydroelectric plant, both Red Eléctrica and the collegiate representation agreed that the aggregate quarries of Güímar are the best location despite the enormous bureaucratic and judicial problems associated with them.
The counselor also pointed out that Tenerife and La Gomera will be energetically one island with the interconnection. The submarine cable works will begin this month of March. As for La Palma, different options for hydraulic pumping are being considered. The plans for El Hierro are the improvement of Gorona del Viento and complementary systems and for Lanzarote and Fuerteventura the best option is battery storage.
